The merciful tyrant
Unwittingly enslaves himself
Head chained to a stone,
A fraction of an inch
Above the grinding wheel
Sweat pours off the brow,
Enough to fill an empty chalice,
The kind of cup that one might
Craft by hand, and set apart
Solely for use in special feasts,
Feasts that never took place
Except in the mind
A mind that now rots
Inside a bone cell,
Cuffed by steel bands
To a stone tablet,
Where it struggles to
Hold itself up,
Away from the wheel,
Less than a tired wink of sleep
Below
How it all occurred is
A promethean comedy of errors
An artificial notion became planning;
Plans inched stealthily forward,
Advancing toward schemes,
Where the schemes beget a clusterfuck,
And the clusterfuck exploded
Into a bucket of shit and
A bathtub of tears
I have wasted the infinite scream
That spectacular spectacle
Of standing above the relenting chasm,
In the assumption of a god form
And a triumphant rush of endorphins
Being full of such arrogance
As to declare oneself a great thing
It is but the backsplash
Of crashing waves,
The backdraft of a conflagration,
The hammer claw that slips carelessly
Off of the head of the nail, and
Slaps back hard into the face of
The one who holds the hammer,
The swirlies of high school bullies
Proverbial pissing
Into a primordial storm
Hubris, personified
The Devil laughs hardest
At we mortals
Who merely dabble
In part time blasphemy
He is quick to show us
Who invented the game,
And who we should call “El Jefe”
His pool cue is the stolen staff of Moses
He chalks it with dust
From the tombs of martyrs
He runs the table every time,
Right from the break
Casually leans back and smiles,
Lights a cigarette, and
Does his best Marlon Brando,
“Rack ‘em up, boys. Double or nothin’.”
©2024 Kevin Trent Boswell
Kevin Trent Boswell 